Okay, I Promised A Writeup Of Luo Binghe Voter Fraud Meme, And As Luo Binghe Is Currently In The Finals

Okay, I promised a writeup of Luo Binghe voter fraud meme, and as Luo Binghe is currently in the finals of the poll this happened on, I figure now's a good time.

So! It all started when Luo Binghe, our beloved half-demon child, was submitted to @/hybrid-battle tournament - or rather, as it was called at the time, @half-being-battle. He won his first poll easily enough, but round 2 was a close battle where he and his opponent, Shantae from eponymous game, took the lead from one another a few times.

In the last ~12 hours, Binghe was losing slightly after a popular blog rb'd the poll with a call to vote for Shantae. However, SVSSS fandom caught this in time and passed the poll around some more. The poll ended with Luo Binghe winning with 51% of votes - or, as simple calculation will reveal, 14 votes lead.

We breathed out a collective sigh of relief, but too soon - as half a day later, someone sent this ask:

(x)

Initially the pollrunner wasn't intending to do anything about it, but then someone suggested a teamup option, and the poll for the option was made (x). It was rb'd by some SVSSS fans with the general sentiment of 'free our boy he did nothing wrong', but didn't gain real traction until:

@gaywarcriminals reblogged it with a small rant in Binghe's defense

@piosplayhouse rb'd said rant with addition of the image from vol.3 cover, of Shen Qingqiu holding Luo Binghe's hand, edited to look like SQQ is the one saying the text above.

This version of the post was circulated in fandom overnight, leading to 'Luo Binghe moves on alone' option winning by a large margin - and, ofc, to the birth of "Luo Binghe voter fraud" meme.

Though aside from this particular post being funny, there was another factor contributing to the meme catching on: how damn in-character it all was. The following sentiments were all repeated more than once in the post's notes:

Luo Binghe getting accused of crimes he didn't commit? Omg just like in canon!

Shen Yuan would absolutely buy bots to get his most beloved blorbo to win an internet poll.

It's just Luo Binghe's protagonist halo!

All of which made the situation fucking hilarious.

Then, the next day, tumblr user verycharismaticdragon (whoever they might be 😉) made some fanart about it, which possibly aided the spread of the meme too.

Also, SVSSS fandom surprised the mod with our chillness 😅

(x)

Since then, Binghe has been going strong in that poll - and now, he's in the finals! So make sure to vote for him; as we all know now, the real voter fraud is the friends we made along the way. And I do recommend checking Luo Binghe's tag on the poll for some fun propaganda we've been making, including a family tree by Pio and some more art by yours truly <3

But wait! There was also another layer to the voter fraud iceberg. The tl;dr:

At about the same time Luo Binghe vs Shantae ended, Hua Cheng was losing in round 1 of @/the-ghost-bracket, with something like 39% of votes to his name. In a desperate move, I linked his poll under my bingqiu voter fraud art, which gave him a boost to get close to a tie, but didnt flip the poll. The next day, I was explaining the LBH voter fraud meme to my friends, and mentioned Hua Cheng's poll too - which was when inspiration struck me, resulting in...

Tumblr

>> vote for Hua Cheng here <<

please help dianxia, he doesnt have the money for voter fraud.... --- EDIT3: Hua Cheng won round 2 & now we are waiting for him in round 3

this post. [ID: art of Xie Lian with a wooden board which reads "Puqi shrine accepting donations in the form of votes for Hua Cheng in the ghost bracket", captioned "please help dianxia, he doesn't have the money for voter fraud"] Which gave the poll enough visibility for Hua Cheng to win with over 62% of votes in the end. (The link in the post is currently changed to round 2 poll, which HC was also initially losing. Srsly besties we gotta follow the tourneys to get our babygirls to win!)

So: LBH voter fraud meme had even helped little bro Huahua out.

And thats about it! Since then, the scum villain fandom has been joking about voter fraud on all of our polls 😂

(Aaaand the last reminder to vote Bingbing in the finals. His opponent has been gaining lately and I think we shouldn't leave it to the protagonist halo this time.)

i’m just thinking about why jiang fengmian found wei wuxian when he did?

generally i (and i’ve seen many others in the fandom) assumed that news of wei changze and cangse sanren’s deaths was common knowledge not long after it happened yet wei wuxian spent years on the streets until jfm went and got him

but would jfm do that? and the excuse that “well yu ziyuan wouldn’t let him,” doesn’t feel quite right to me either because why would she suddenly change her mind/he suddenly be willing to go against her when he wasn’t before?

what i do think is that jfm’s son didn’t have any friends to the point that his only companions were dogs (*cough* jin ling parallels *cough*) and jfm remembered his old friends who have a son around jiang cheng’s age

he hasn’t heard from them in a while, they’re wanderers it’s not like he’s got an address where he can get in touch with them so he has to track them down

and learns they were last seen in yiling

why go himself?

jfm is a sect leader he had the resources that he didn’t have to investigate this personally but he might have at least wanted to be the first to greet wcz and cssr as a good will gesture since they were his friends and he wants to reconnect

he doesn’t learn they’re dead until he gets there

this whole time he expected to find his friends happily living their lives with their son but they’re dead what happened to their child?

did the people of yiling know who wwx was? did they tell jfm where to find wwx?

so jfm where he expected to find a happy family instead finds his friends’ son a starving orphan so in the worst way he gets what he wanted: a companion for his son

there’s not much information about pre-canon so these are just my thoughts and i’m not trying to say what “really” happened because we readers can’t know we don’t have access to that information

but what we do know is that news in the mdzs universe generally spreads through rumors and (from what i recall) cultivators don’t frequent yiling so only the common people would be left to spread rumors (which we also know cultivators don’t usually listen to)

we also know jfm loved his children, he was a generally kind person, he didn’t like conflict but wasn’t afraid to do what he thought was right so if he knew his friends were dead and their son an orphan why wouldn’t he help?

I mean, if Airplane had suddenly stopped updating, that could certainly instigate a full read-through! And as the updates continously failed to restart, SY could get more and more emotional - anger for the sudden stop and lack of any resolution, worry over why tf Airplane disappeared, more anger at the disruption and lack of any more story - leading him to make careless mistakes with his food and cussing out both the book and the author-

Because, when you do read the Airplane extra where he dies, it reads as if it takes place after any random update - he was even almost finished working on the next chapter!! That's why he was freaking out about his laptop breaking!!

I'd actually been thinking about a time gap between their deaths as well, but I never connected it with the 20 day reread! I headcanon my Peak Lords as younger - YQY as a head disciple when facing down TLJ, SJ being so stressed about the IAC because it's (one of?) their first as Peak Lords, why SJ only has a few inner disciples and a 16 year old as his head disciple - and honestly, their behavior tracks closer to under 35 than, say, 70. As I read on one post some time ago - imagine a bunch of 20-25 year olds shoved in charge of a university, and suddenly a lot of things make more sense.

(I'm only applying this to SQQ, YQY, SQH, and LQG - the other Peak Lord's might very well be a few years to decades older, given that all Peak Lords ascend simultaneously, so the other peaks might have been waiting a while.)

SQQ says he doesn't want to think about how old his body could be, but that's no guarantee he's actually that old! I generally put my SQQ at around 30 when SY transmigrates in - making it 14 years since TLJ was sealed, so 16- and with YQY presumably a few years older-

So. 30. And if SQH is about that age-

Give SY a week or so before he ends up going back and rereading the entirety of PIDW, and the number of days matches up pretty well with the number of years, for bonus synchronicity!

...but all that about the Peak Lord's ages is kust bonus speculation, and not necessary to support the original point.

(Also about the "following for years" - it's never explicitly stated, but when SQQ talks about how rhe story changed direction during/after the IAC, its implied that he was there - or at least, that he knew about it - before it became popular. Or, at least, that's how I read it! I like an SY who became invested in the protagonist and the world, and then could never bear to leave!)

(And also f* the idea that he read it for the first time 20 days before dying - he has a Reputation on the forum board!!! Airplane was thinking (and having nightmares) of him years after he died and transmigrated!! He compared Peerless Cucumber to a nagging wife, not a nagging quick fling!)

...actually you know what*, I'll check the canon myself tomorrow, but: do we actually know for sure that SY died immediately after finishing PIDW? because i remember he died cursing it with his last words, but not whether it was indicated that he died the same day as he finished reading.

Couldn't it happen at a later date? Because, like, just basing it on myself, there are some things that I finished 2 years ago and hated so much that I still have a rant pretty much lock'd and loaded, and I will start recounting it at the slightest provocation.** Couldn't it be the same case?

*inspired by a couple posts i saw before, about the discrepancy between SY following the novel for years (i didnt see this on my reread yet so idk source) and finishing it in 20 days (chap.1)

**yes, yes, the probability of transmigrating into woh/shl if i meet an unfortunate accident is something I have a healthy fear of

Look at what my wonderful girlfriend gave me for Christmas!!!!

They're so cute!!!!!!!!! And soft!!!! Thank you, @peregrinationality!!!!!

i know kindness exists because i am kind